Presencing What's Already/Always So – Truth/Love/Aletheia

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Leading up to and when my relationship with my wife began I was experimenting with some behaviors that were fairly new to me…ala, experimenting in the cycle of Boyatzis’ Intentional Change Theory. It didn’t take long until I was seeing powerful results in my relationship to warrant moving from experimentation to practice. I think what really happened is that I committed to practice anyway prior to seeing any results. The behavior I’m talking about is one of full disclosure. Sharing everything. Whether I wanted to or not. Whether it seemed like a good idea or not. Definitely whether it was safe or not. It took some time, but over the years I felt fully known by another human being. Not just sort of known, or mostly known, but fully and unequivocally known.

Freeing and powerful are words that come to mind when I think of the new space of relationship that this allowed for. It really altered what was possible in relationship and at the same time it forced me to alter who I was being not only in the relationship but outside of the relationship. Certain things that I may have tried to “get away with” in the past weren’t possible anymore when full disclosure was the order of the day. Being pushed around in shopping carts by drunken friends while totally inebriated took on a whole new meaning when truth was a commitment to be lived from and within.

Despite the fear that is initially present with it, once the possibility of that kind of relationship is revealed there really is no choice anymore. I first saw it, like a lightning flash, when somebody I knew told me about a truth that she told. She put everything at risk and told it anyway because she saw that to not tell it was just a waste of time and that to tell it, and to put everything on the line anyway, would change everything in an instant. That’s the way it works too. As soon as it comes out of your mouth everything changes. There’s no taking it back. It’s a$$ on the line, no holds barred, life at stake.

In that space and with everything on the line, relationships take on a whole new meaning and gain a whole new area to expand into. Secure, real relationship is built as long as that integrity is maintained.

Eventually, and it takes a while, a certain level of comfort develops with disclosure. One is secure and grounded in one relationship with another human being that “helps, supports, and encourages each step in the process” and experimentation begins again.

This is where I am today. I’ve been experimenting with full disclosure. With many people. Experimenting, seeing what would happen, observing, pulling back, trying again. Could I develop deep, powerful relationships with many people? Create a tribe as some people call them. Could I be so known by them that they begin to see that I am them as I see that they are me?

Somehow, it doesn’t feel like it’s being courageous when it’s just an experiment. I’m just learning after all – building on my strengths while reducing my gaps. But man is it freeing and fun.

In a previous post I’d mentioned that many people probably react to meeting me, in their heads, with “Yeah, well you don’t know me.” after I’ve explained to them that I love them. This article will attempt to explain the apparent paradox of loving somebody that I don’t even know.

Most of what we traditionally know about loving another person has been given to us through what we’ve learned in books, or what we’ve heard in love songs, or what we’ve seen in television or movies about love, falling in love, being in love, how torturous love is, etc. So the first thing about that is that you may want to consider the question of “How did I come to know what it is I think I know?” And not just in regard to love, but in regard to knowing period. That’s a topic for another post but in this case, consider the question “How did I come to know what it is I think I know about love?”

As mentioned above there are a number of sources of this knowledge. You may have witnessed or experienced love from your parents, other people’s parents, family, friends, God, movies, TV, books, love songs, sad love songs. Perhaps you’ve “fallen in love” as we like to say in our culture. You just knew that you loved that person because of the way they made you feel, or said more accurately, the way you felt when they were around.

Maybe you both shared common interests such as competitive kick-ball, or eating sloppy joe’s by candlelight. Because of this common interest you knew you loved that person. Certainly you’ve had friends that you’ve loved and you knew you loved them because they thought similar things as you, or were there to pick you up when you were down, maybe they helped you get over that other person that you loved so much.

What I’m not about to do is to tell you that those things aren’t love. They may or may not be. What I am about to tell you is that love is much more simple than that. Love is much more simple than that.

Love just is. The reason it shows up in all those examples above is because it’s already there and in those situations you’re open to it. You’re willing to receive love as a presence and then you experience love. Now, there are cases where you continue to call something love because love used to be present as an experience and it isn’t present anymore. Often that experience comes in the form of somebody breaching the integrity of the relationship.

So what? Right? I mean really what’s the point here.

The point is that I’m an opening for love being present and experienced. Sometimes I’ll get hurt being this way, I know, because there’s no better way to get hurt than to make oneself entirely vulnerable with another who is unwilling to make themself equally vulnerable. It’s worth the risk. Often, what shows up is people’s magnificence. Sometimes it takes a while, I do occasionally have rough patches and I find myself closing down, not willing to be vulnerable anymore. Then I notice that my life is quite a bit less grand than it used to be.

What I do in those situations is identify what is covering over or concealing love. It’s not so much that I have to do anything, because it’s there whether I uncover or unconceal it or not, but I can’t experience it when something is in the way of it being present. Usually I’m holding on to something and unwilling to let it go, or not saying something that I need to say, or I was expecting something to happen that didn’t. Once I say it, or let it go, or give it up love is present.

Given that, when I used to meet people, I used to wait for something from them to indicate that I could or should love them. Rarely would I get it from them. As soon as I gave that up and just started loving them that’s what started to happen. Love would happen. Sometimes it takes a while for their reality to match mine, sometimes it never does, but my reality is so beautiful. Imagine loving everybody you meet.

There are many people that I’ve met in life prior to knowing “who I am” and as a result I may not have been true to myself and very likely, not true to you. Now, there are many people, those that I hold closest to my heart who were able to get to who I am anyway. These people are generally my family, my closest friends, and even others who’ve known me even though I didn’t know myself. This entry is not about them, it’s about all the others who I haven’t spent enough time with for you to get to know me and me to know you.

For those people, the first order of business is most likely an apology. Now, I wasn’t always a jerk to you prior to my knowing who I am, but the odds were increased considerably that at one point I may have been. So, I apologize. I hope that you’ll consider this apology deeply and accept it with my promise to be true to myself, to uphold my word regarding who I am, and to begin again with you. After all, I know now that I love you. That you’re perfect exactly the way that you are and exactly the way that you are not. Even if you don’t forgive me.

However, if you’ve read my apology and you’ve gotten all your questions answered about it, and who I may have been that had me being the way I was in our relationship previously, and you understand who I am now and that I can say with utmost integrity that it is who I am, and you can’t or won’t accept my apology we may be better off parting ways. To maintain the relationship in that state is to hold the past in place, to not allow me to be who I am in the eternal now (and now, and now, and now). I can be ok with that. But what I can’t be ok with, is you continuing to be who you were for me when I was who I was. Not forgiving and not letting that go holds who you were in place as much as it holds me in place. I know that you’re much more than that.

There are some of you out there and we’d only “met” in passing. There’s the guy in the parking lot at Peaches Record Store in Old Brooklyn when I was about 8 years old who drove by and asked me, “What are you looking at”? Or those kids that asked me if I wanted to go to Jim’s house because, as you said, you were going to go beat him up. There are also countless people I’ve passed in the hallways at work, or high school, or just out on the street. We had the opportunity, for one brief moment, to really be together. To take just a second out of what I was reflecting about and be with you, and share some space, and some time, and some love…that’s what I apologize for. That I wasn’t present enough to create that for the both of us to share. Me in your world and you in mine. Just for a moment.

There are others that I’ve met where no apology may be necessary. I may have been known to you as “that funny guy”, or that “really smart guy”, or that really persistent boyfriend who just couldn’t let it go, or that kid who was so competitive that even when you won you felt like you lost. But I was never really mean to you, not really. To you, the apology is still offered but it’s more of an apology for not really and fully getting to be with you. I was, essentially, a front or a mask or a facade. I mean, parts of the real me may have come out, but mostly I was pretty busy protecting myself (from what now, I don’t know). I wasn’t really authentic with you. Sure, I was funny and I told you the truth as I knew it, but it wasn’t coming from the place where truth comes from. It was coming from the place where people come from when they’re trying to protect themselves and survive.

I’m over that now. And I’d like to reintroduce myself to you.

“Hi, my name is Ed Malinowski, I have 3 kids and an amazing wife, and I work as an organizational consultant and coach. But what I really want you to know about me is that I just love people. So I want you to know that you don’t have to be any particular way with me, and that I already love you. I love you exactly the way you are and exactly the way you’re not. And, I want you to know that I know that you love me too, whether you know it or not, and it’s ok either way.”

It may be a little strange interacting with me now since some of the “ways of being” I’ll be won’t be what you’re used to or expecting. But I’d like you to consider that those weren’t me anyway and from how I was being you weren’t you either.

And if we pass in the hall, you may wonder what I’m so happy about, or you may get the feeling that I know something that you don’t know or that I’m up to no good. That’s just me present to love, with you. Strange as it may seem.

The true gift that comes from me being who I am is that you get to be who you are. I can’t wait to meet you.

With Love,

Ed

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Someday we may meet in person. When we do it’s possible that I’ll introduce myself to you this way. “Hi, my name is Ed Malinowski, I have 3 kids and an amazing wife, and I work as an organizational consultant and coach. But what I really want you to know about me is that I just love people. So I want you to know that you don’t have to be any particular way with me, and that I already love you. I love you exactly the way you are and exactly the way you’re not. And, I want you to know that I know that you love me too, whether you know it or not, and it’s ok either way.”

Who introduces themself that way? First of all, you should read About the Author. But if that doesn’t explain it, I’m sure there will be plenty of posts around the topic of love that will shed some light on the Why of it. For now, just suffice it to say that even though we haven’t met I love you.

Now, not a lot of people comment on my introduction. I don’t really know what people think about it. Probably most of them think, somewhat secretly, “Yeah, well you don’t know me.” I’m sure there are a fair amount of people that believe I’m fairly disingenuous. Either that or if they have no impetus to continue to work (or play) with me, they’ll just disregard what I said and disregard me. But I swear to you that it is possible to love complete strangers and that I do it all the time.

Before we get too far down the path, I want to clearly distinguish that love and sex are very undistinguished in our society. So no, I’m not talking about sex at all.

However, I’ve done a lot of work over the years, deep reflection, development of emotional intelligence, and reflection on what it is to be a human being and as a result I’ve gotten fairly close to a state of truth (hence truth/love/aletheia), at least for a few fleeting moments, of the very nature of reality. And what I’ve come up with is that all there really is, the water we swim in each and every day, is love.

We spend the majority of our days blind to it and pretty much missing the point. But that’s the reason why I’m here, to remind everybody.

This blog, is one avenue of approach. You don’t have to believe what I say here. All I ask is that you read it, and consider.